Abstract

Long before Jacques Derrida undertook a critique of phonocentrism as a form of ethnocentrism, a few teachers of deaf pupils rose to the challenge of working on a sign language independent of the structures of speech. For Derrida, this critique encompassed a reappraisal of Western limitations, while reflecting upon the boundaries and linearity of alphabetical versus ideographic writing. What I explore in this article is how the development of a pedagogy for deaf pupils went hand in hand with an examination of language itself, including the dominance of alphabetical language, and led thinkers to question its role in the development of thought. The context of the development of a writing proper to sign language was one of the ferments in which this critique took shape, making writing practice the threshold of a critical investigation into the expressive qualities specific to sign language. My aim here is to sketch out the epistemological challenges and stakes of some of these conflicting approaches between the 1760s and the 1850s. This article analyzes some of the most radical linguistic conceptualizations about the potential of sign language to recreate the relationship between users and their language. I consider how teachers’ positionings led them to conceptualize sign language in distinct ways, ranging from a temporary, intermediary tool to an autonomous language with a writing of its own. After considering de Michel de l’Épée’s methodical signs and how far removed they are from the conception of a language of its own, as well as a discussion of them by deaf writer Pierre Desloges, I will investigate how Roch-Ambroise Bébian’s and Joseph Piroux’s conceptions of a writing specific to sign language led each of them to position it as a complete and independent language.